Spotlight on Europe

Children's Literature - Ellen Welty

Geared toward first and second graders, this title in the "First Facts: Focus on the Continents" series is characterized by color photographs, small maps and extensive generalizations. The text contains sentence fragments—"But Europe does have cold spots"—and overly broad statements such as "Few plants grow in the cold mountains." There is a glossary and an index as well as a brief reading list and a URL address that takes readers to a webpage that has the same information as the text, not supplementary information. The books in this series are quite brief, only twenty four pages each and can scarcely cover more than the location of the continent relative to other continents. Children who are emergent readers need nonfiction books appropriate for their reading level, but at nearly twenty-four dollars for each volume in the series, teachers and librarians would be better served by purchasing a subscription to National Geographic or a similar publication for their classroom or library. I don't recommend this title. Reviewer: Ellen Welty